TOC Patrick Stephens.

[Peter]

May we retaliate before the fact? It's too late at night to debate this, but I happened upon this letter by chance, and thought, (after getting bored with American Idol) I may forget it in the morning. So here it is. Post 911 but not by much!

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

From: "Patrick Stephens" <pstephens@objectivistcenter.org>

To: objectivism@wetheliving.com

Subject: OWL: The Roots of Peace

Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 10:08:21 -0400

Following is an excerpt from my response to Lance's letter regarding my commentary with some additional comments.

>>

My point was not with the morality of humanitarian or charitable aid, but with the question of whether terrorists would make the fine distinction that you do between the actions of a government and the actions of its citizens. The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center showed, by their actions, an unwillingness to discriminate between the guilty (of whatever) and the innocent. Even should the U.S. adopt a non- interventionist foreign policy, I believe terrorists would still target America for its citizens' support of

Israel.

As to the morality of interventionism, I would argue that the world has fundamentally changed since the 18th century. Forming alliances and occasionally intervening are both now necessary for the defense of the nation. It would be absurd to claim that our right of self defense allows us only to respond to attacks and prohibits us from preventing attacks. Just as the government is fully authorized to take steps to reduce crime within its borders (through investigation, surveillance and policing) it is fully authorized to intervene in foreign affairs when a foreign government or organization poses a threat to its citizens.

The point is not so much that the America government must defend its citizens' interests abroad, as much as that it must defend its citizens at home. The attacks to which my commentary was responding occurred in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The U.S. government is morally permitted, and has a moral obligation to protect and defend its citizens against future such attacks. It seems clear that that defense will require--at a minimum--the destruction and elimination of the terrorist threat, which may in turn require the elimination of those governments which support and enable terrorist activities.

>>

Addressing Lance's assertion that "If a certain activity is moral for a gov't to do then it is necessarily true that it must be moral for individuals as well. This does not necessarily hold in reverse, however. Just because an activity is moral for an individual to do, it is not necessarily moral (or even permissible) for a gov't to do."

There are a number of activities that a government is permitted to engage in that are forbidden to individual citizens: enforcing and issuing subpoenas, indictment, criminal sentencing, pass law, building and deploying nuclear weapons, stockpiling biological weaponry, certain types of surveillance, and issuing warrants are but just a few.

I would also ask the following question, "So long as the financing is voluntary, what actions, moral for an individual, would be denied an organization?" Since it is not moral for individuals to tax one another, I don't see how any legitimate action allowed to one man may be rightly denied to an organization of many men. Note that I'm not addressing the issue of taxation, I am simply questioning the supposition that organizations are constrained in ways that individuals are not. It is also good to remember that taxation is not the defining characteristic of government--if it were possible to finance government through entirely voluntary means, then what ~moral~ action would be denied it?

Patrick Stephens

Manager of Current Affairs

The Objectivist Center

Edited January 14, 2010 by Peter Taylor

[Peter]

Crap. I just had to look at my archives. Now, I may have a hard time getting to sleep. Here is a thread from Atlantis. BB weighs in.

Peter

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: from knives to guns to bombs

Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 19:28:01 -0600

Barbara Branden wrote:

"Dennis, I find myself slightly appalled by your post on the right of individuals to own weapons of mass destruction. Appalled, but, as of now, although I need to think about it further, unable to argue against you. Your arguments make sense to me, particularly your statement: <<The question becomes who do you trust more, the individual or the state.>>"

Many thousands of individuals in the United States already own weapons of mass destruction or their

components but are largely unaware of that fact. What people associate with the term "weapon of mass destruction" are things which compose only a very small percentage of things which which can function as weapons of mass destruction. Many accidents in history involved weapons of mass destruction which we can recognize as such in hindsight. Spreading small pox and various diseases, large industrial accidents (I once

guarded an exploded grain elevator complex while in college), and of course everyone's favorite: fires.

My point is that the potential exists everywhere if you are clever enough to recognize it. Do we eliminate unrealized potentials and those who recognize them? A one horse town machine shop with half a dozen employees can turn out a few hundred low quality sub-machine guns a day starting from basic raw materials. Do we shut down all machine shops and those who have the high school level of mechanical skills to make

machineguns. Crude grenades are 400+ year old technology but I can't own one, of course making one is easier than programming a VCR.

Barbara Branden wrote:

"One of the things that disturbs me is that today, it appears that most of the individuals -- specifically terrorists -- who own or want such weapons do intend to use them against innocent people. Another is the possibility of accidents if weapons of mass destruction were in the hands even of well-meaning people who may simply not

know enough to keep their weapons from causing massive destruction; I would be extremely nervous

if my neighbor had an atom bomb in his garage. Please address such issues. They do not necessarily

negate the point of your post, but they are troublesome."

Lining up people along a ditch and shooting them killed more people than atomic bombs in WWII. More people were killed with machetes in one week in Africa (a couple years ago) than all the Americans who killed in the American Revolution, The War Between the States, Korea, and Vietnam

put together. Natural preventable diseases kill more people every year than all those ever killed by chemical and biological warfare agents. Banning DDT has killed more people through malaria than WWII did. The list of comparisons go on and on but in general the proof comes from observing history. Statists and their policies kill people en masse. Clever individuals have always had the ability to release weapons of mass destruction but little has come of it. It will be the clever individual who can target weapons to take the head of the serpent without large civilian casualties. Every tyranny you destroy today saves millions in the long run.

With objective law and property rights those who are wealthy enough to produce atomic weapons have a financial vested interest to store them carefully and in areas to minimize their financial exposure. If I had my own little shop making experimental nukes I wouldn't locate it near a population center full well knowing the legal exposure an accident would involve. I would instead locate it in a remote area and use security and

safety precautions necessary to the task as you would in any industrial setting. I do not know for a fact but highly suspect that all major cities are swept for nuclear devices on a regular basis in any case. It has been variously reported that the Soviets had/have approximately 100 nuclear weapons stored on American soil in remote areas of the country. I'm sure they realized the ease of discovery if stored in urban areas.

Anyone remember the TV program "Prey" where a new species starts to replace human beings? The new species dug up disease victims from 100 years ago to use the disease as a modern biological weapon. Just another one of those thousands of "weapons of mass destruction" out there anyone, including rogue states,can use.

I worry more about rogue cops than I do burglars. I worry more about sleepy drivers, teenagers, and old people on the road than I do drunk drivers. I worry more about Bill and Hillary Clinton than I do Saddam Hussein. It depends on weighing the percentages.

I consider John McCain to be one of the most dangerous men in the world. Not because of his intellect, his access to weapons, his connections, his intent, or his skills in any area. He is dangerous because he is like a drunk scaring the cow who kicks over a lantern and starts the Chicago fire. He and people like him need to be recognized as the great danger they represent. I would feel much safer with a nuke in my basement than John

McCain getting his way on much of anything.

To those who want to find a way to rationally debate those who are anti-gun or wish to have some kind of rational gun control I find such talk laughable from a military point of view. I consider Peikoff's position I heard on tapes of his radio show to be entirely consistent with a fascist state's fondest wishes. We are already effectively disarmed and you want to give up more? The vast unwashed public is so clueless about how defenseless we are that a few more kids pushed over the edge by the piss poor educational system in our nation may convince people to elect the next Hitler who will make things all better.

Dennis May

From: "J. Gregory Wharton" <ragnar@axiomatic.net>

To: <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: RE: ATL: from knives to guns to bombs to WoMD

Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 07:30:30 -0800

You know, just when I'm about to go and unsubscribe ATL again, somebody comes up with another interesting topic. To wit, Joe Duarte wrote:

> 1. The human right to defend oneself is absolute, eternal, and essential to our survival. No other rights can exist if we cannot defend ourselves against force and predation. We can't speak freely, practice a religion (like we would want to anyway!), or hold property without a clear license to answer initiatory force with defensive force.

No argument. This is very nearly tautological, and is essential to the objectivist ethics.

> 2. In a free society we defer the use of defensive force to the government, placing it under objective control, employing the due process of objective law to mete it.

More precisely, members of a rights-protecting society delegate some (not all, and not exclusively) of their prerogatives of the use of defensive force to an organization which (at least nominally) is supposed to ensure justice and look out for everyone's rights. Typically, we call such organizations "governments," but there are those here who might quibble with that, so I prefer to be more generally definitive.

> 3. Because emergency situations can arise, wherein our lives or property may be in jeopardy, we retain the right of _immediate_ self-defense. This means defending oneself from predation as that predation is ocurring, not after the fact (vigilantism).

Certainly. One important part of the delegation of the use of defensive force is that, should the government fail for some reason or be unable to act immediately to defend you, you still retain your full right to defend yourself and can exercise that right at will (given a certain set of circumstances). It's YOUR right, not the government's. They can act on your behalf, but that does not prejudice your right to act on your own

behalf. If someone attacks you, you are well within your rights to defend yourself with force in kind.

> 4. So we have, by default, the right to own any and all arms that can reasonably be used for self-defense in the context of our time. The principle is constant - the technological details may change.

The ownership is derivative of the right to USE whatever means you choose to defend yourself, so long as the means are appropriate to the situation. In order to employ those means, it is often necessary that they be owned by you, or at least in your current possession, though this again is not necessarily the case.

Basically, I think we can establish that in any case where you could be construed to have the right to use some sort of force to defend yourself, then you can by extension be construed to have the right to own/possess the means to exercise that force. This is an important, and general principle.

> 5. Rocket launchers, grenades, nuclear bombs cannot be reasonably used for self-defense in the context of our time. This context is informed by the nature of the crimes we can expect to face.

I disagree strongly here, and part of our dispute relates to a matter of simple strategy and practical effectiveness. As I've mentioned before, power is simply the ability to get others to follow your will. In the case of defending oneself against the initiation of force, the best defense is to neutralize a threat before it has even fully manifested itself.

Obviously it is not legitimate to initiate force yourself on the premise that you are "neutralizing" a potential threat which might manifest in the future. Rather, what I mean by this is two-fold:

1. Deterrance: "Peace through strength," is more than just the motto of a certain branch of the US government. It is a truism of strategy. The individual who is strong and manifestly able to use that strength to defend himself, deters transgressions against him pre-emptively but peacefully.

2. Simultaneous Counterattack (or, the Stop Hit): In martial arts, a high level of awareness and skill in fighting technique often results in an ability to execute a counterattack at nearly the exact instant an opponent begins an attack. In the two particular arts I study, western-style fencing and Kendo, it can often be very difficult to tell which of two combatants initiated an attack and which counterattacked. The instant a combatant begins to execute an attack, the opponent will often have already begun the counterattack. This sometimes gives the impression that the counter attacker is actually the attacker--unless you know what to look for.

In the case of deterrence, the existence of an ability and/or great strength is enough to deter the initiator from attacking in the first place. In the case of the Simultaneous Counterattack, a high level of alertness allows the defender to respond as soon as the first attacking action begins.

Note that neither of these two cases involves a pre-emptive use of force, which would in itself be an initiation, and thus immoral. Rather, through deterrence, we pre-emptively suppress the initiation of force by simple ~possession~ of the ability to defend ourselves well. We do not need to ~use~ this ability pre-emptively, we merely need to ~possess~ it and make sure potential bad guys ~know~ we possess it.

Through a high level of alertness and skill in counterattack, we are able to respond instantly and overwhelmingly to an initiation as soon as it is initiated. With proper alertness and response speed, the counterattack should simultaneously coincide with the attack itself. Even though to the untrained observer, it might appear that the counterattack was pre-emptive, and not responsive, the Simultaneous Counterattack is triggered by definite action toward the initiation of force, not a mere potential. This is an important distinction, allows us to morally defend ourselves with swift and overwhelming counterstrikes when we are threatened.

Where does this leave us with respect to military weapons and weapons of mass destruction (WoMD--which, despite arguments to the contrary, are not actually military weapons, but strategic ones: for instance, nukes have practically no military value, but lots of strategic value)?

We'll start with the tough one: WoMD.

Because of their enormous deterrence value, WoMD have defense value for individuals versus massive, organized opposition. If an individual is in possession of a 1-kiloton tactical nuke (a device which could easily fit inside a briefcase), then that individual has the ~ability~ to do significant damage to lots of people and lots of property. Public possession of such an ability would be a significant deterrent to initiation of force by large, well-armed, well-organized groups who might seek to initiate force against that individual. Indeed, even whole societies and governments would be required by prudence to treat such individuals with a great deal of deference and respect, and also to watch them like hawks, because:

A person in possession of a WoMD who shows any action toward using that weapon in an initiation of force is a tremendous danger to large numbers of individuals (to say the least). The defensive posture against such persons must be one of hyper-alertness--unwavering and total vigilance--so that a counterattack can be swift, neutralizing and devastating as soon as the smallest initiative action is taken with such a weapon.

So, I think there is a legitimate basis for arguing that individuals have the right to possess weapons of mass destruction (although I still see some avenues of attack for arguing against this position). At the same time, any person who possesses such a weapon would become the target of such complete and intrusive monitoring by any person who would potentially be threatened by that WoMD (which would be a whole lot of people), and would be subject to overwhelming counterattack at the smallest initiative action associated with that WoMD, that the cost of ownership would far outweigh the benefit for all but a select few--typically governments and other powerful organizations with broad strategic interests.

[Note also, as an extension of this line of reasoning that possession of WoMD in secret (i.e. not as public knowledge) diminishes the usefulness of such devices in inverse proportion to the number of people who know about them. Since one of the main reasons for possessing WoMD for defensive purposes is large-scale deterrence, secrecy could be construed under many circumstances to be initiative.]

Taking this down a notch, the same argument applies, in lesser degree to the more destructive sorts of military hardware. Possession of a fuel-air bomb (a "conventional nuke," as it were) would have many of the same advantages and drawbacks as possession of chemical weapons and/or an actual nuke.

Possession of a battle tank would have a certain, still large but more limited, deterrence value. A tank would also give its possessor certain defensive advantages against certain sorts of well-armed agressors.

A fully automatic firearm similarly imparts deterrence power and strong defensive ability within a certain context.

And so on, down the line to kitchen knives, chopsticks and your bare hands.

Note that this reasoning also applies upward to weapons of power beyond any of our technology's current capacities. A planet-busting bomb or a high-output continuous-beam X-ray laser would be weapons capable of far more destructive power than mere nukes or nerve gas. Yet, under certain circumstances, individual possession of such weapons for defensive reasons could easily be justified, remembering that the drawbacks would be proportionally great.

> 6. As the above-mentioned weapons have specific purposes not congruent with personal self-defense, but congruent with war, mass killings, and terrorism, personal ownership of them can be justly barred in a free society. Call this the principle of pre-emptive retaliatory force. A similar application of this principle would be laws against drunk driving (but not arbitrarily low blood-alcohol regs) wherein a drunk person drives on the roadways and threatens to kill or maim others. He hasn't actually struck anyone _yet_, but the nature of his drunken driving poses a clear danger and he should be forcibly removed from the road and charged with reckless endangerment.

> Another, macro, example would be a nation like Israel launching a pre-emptive strike against the Arab powers when they observed that an invasion was imminent (The Six-Day War).

Joe appears to be making a distinction here between individuals defending themselves with small-scale weapons versus large-scale weapons (i.e. a distinction by degree). He then makes an explicit call for the sanctioned initiation of force against any person possessing such large-scale weapons on the mere fact of possession (taking possession itself to be an initiation of force in some manner).

First, this distinction he is drawing is arbitrary. There is no "bright line" between these various weapons. Four hundred years ago, a semi-automatic handgun with a high-capacity magazine would have been considered a weapon of mass destruction. Now such things are considered basic personal-defense weapons by a great many people. Where does the line get drawn, logically? I think any line we try to draw as a matter of degree in this issue is going to be fundamentally arbitrary.

Even if we leave out the substantial grey area and focus on the well-defined cases (say, kitchen knives versus nukes), Joe's argument still provides no justification for his positions. Joe states categorically that he thinks nukes cannot possibly be considered defensive weapons because of their capacity for mass killing (i.e. their great destructive power). My argument above and the history of the cold war suggest otherwise. If WoMD can be used defensively and legitimately by governments (which they can and have), then by extension they can also be used the same way by individuals. Governments do not have any rights or powers which do not ultimately derive from individuals. Also, Dennis May's points on the wide availability of WoMD are well-taken and relevant here.

We arrest a drunk driver not because he ~might~ initiate force, but because he already ~has~. Operating a dangerous weapon (in this case a car) with greatly diminished faculties of reason and self-control is an act of preliminary initiation of force. We are well within our rights to proportionately defend ourselves against such actions. Likewise, if someone pulls a gun and starts waving it around in a crowd, this too is a preliminary act of initiation of force--an overt threat--and we can respond legitimately with defensive force.

These are fundamentally dis-analagous to simple weapon ownership. Owning a nuclear weapon, even carrying it around on your person, cannot in itself be construed to be an initiation of force, and we therefore cannot legitimately use force against that person for that simple fact alone. We can, however, watch them very closely and use defensive force the instant they make an initiative move.

And, as for wars between nations, that is subject for another discussion, and is probably outside the scope of this missive. As it stands, I've made my views clear on that score previously.

ciao,

~g

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: from knives to guns to bombs

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 20:23:52 -0600

Julio Inatia wrote:

<Should the right to bear arms as put forth by the founding fathers be disregarded because the government escalates arms technology? Does technology negate rights? What principle has changed?

Julio hits it right on the head.

Most of my military career was spent designing weapons. I have also designed several small arms both before and after my military years. My grandfather, his brother, and one of his cousins were also gun designers.

The right of people to defend themselves defines freedom. The United States is not a free country by any stretch of the imagination. We are continually fooled by parasites into giving up rights and transferring more control of our daily lives to those who tax us by force.

The second amendment is clear to those who can still think. It was drafted in order to keep the individual on an even footing with those who would enslave the individual. The state of the art in military terms during the time the constitution was written could be purchased by any free man. This included ships, cannon, rockets, guns, powder, ball, burning tars, wagons, horses, etc.

By the time of the civil war repeating rifles, gatling guns, artillery, and repeating handguns were available. Any free man could still buy these.

WWI brought aircraft, advanced machineguns, chemical warfare, tanks, submarines, high speed land transport, hand held rockets, well made grenades, and a host of other innovations.

It would be safe to say that sometime after the dust settled following WWI the individual or any group of individuals were no longer on an even footing with the state. It now required great wealth to compete with the military prowess of the state and more and more regulations came into effect in the English speaking western nations preventing the ownership of weapons of one kind or another. Great Britain has not been a free nation for a very long time. Australia and Canada are also very poor cousins of freedom. Kill a burglar in Great Britain and you will be charged with murder. Crime is out of sight in Australia.

The retards running the NRA don't understand what the GOA (Gun Owners of America) have always known: you can't compromise on freedom. The most basic infantryman in any modern military operation has access to machineguns, grenades, grenade launchers, night vision scopes, advanced communication equipment,

armor piercing bullets, incendiary devices, and a whole host of other devices depending on his specialty. If the average man in the United States cannot purchase the arms used by the average infantryman, freedom is forfeit. Local police can buy machineguns but I can't (I'm not grandfather claused in as some gun owners are). Local police, state patrols, SWAT teams, a host of federal agencies, and the military are all allowed to own things the individual is not allowed to own.

Over a million crimes are prevented every year in the United States by private gun ownership. More children are injured and die playing football than those injured or killed with guns in schools. The enemies of freedom use their dupes in the Democratic Party controlled mass media to feed crap into the minds of the gullible.

Now consider the future:

There are many firearms in the United States right now but the vast majority are useless against military weapons. Many cities and the entire state of California have gone to war against the individual and are confiscating guns and sending people to prison by the droves. The Midwest, Northwest, and South plus one or two small states in the Northeast are the only places Second Amendment rights are not being lost at an alarming rate. I would expect the next Democratic president to press for full gun confiscation.

As the only large semi-free nation in the world there will be no one to come save us when the parasites have complete control. Make no mistake those who would disarm us are Fascists no better than the worst of Hitler's crew. They need to be treated as such.

In the future you can expect the arms race to continue. The individual will always be outgunned by a modern military state. The freedom of the individual can only be guaranteed when many individuals banding together have the ability to seriously resist the aggression of statist parasites.

What do I support in the future:

In a state of freedom I see no problem with the individual ownership of most all common military items. Weapons of mass destruction (as poorly defined as that is) can be easily made by individuals with a little know how. The question becomes who do you trust more, the individual or the state. Collectivist states have killed hundreds of millions of people and crippled the lives of billions. If the next Democratic president decides to declare martial law who will the lovers of freedom turn to except those "outlaws" who saw the danger and stockpiled forbidden weapons or have the know-how to make them when needed. I can assure you than you will not fight a modern fascist state and win unless you are willing to use weapons of mass

destruction, the larger the weapon the better. Anyone who thinks grandpa with his trusty ole shotgun and dad with his hunting rifle are going to put up a realistic fight against fascists in the street are living about 6-7

wars ago.

In the more distant future:

When man moves into space an H-bomb becomes an industrial tool and a pop gun compared to the types of energy and scale of things which can be used as weapons. If we can't even get legal sub-machineguns to combat corrupt police and fascist federal agents can you imagine industrial operations in space and the red tape needed to use common industrial use H-Bombs. You can just forget man's bright future in any setting if we can't protect the obvious requirements of freedom needed today.

If you’re stupid, like the NRA, you will draw a line in the sand and say we will compromise no further.

Of course they compromise again and continue dealing with with those who keep moving the line in the sand. Compromising with fascists is a loss every time.

Fear not weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a free people, fear the state which takes freedom from people. The state has always been and continues to be the dispenser of mass death and destruction.

If you had a fraction of your stolen tax money you could purchase freedom insurance in the form of a quality machine gun or two, a few grenades, a couple anti-tank weapons, a few mines, an anti-aircraft missile, and perhaps an armored RV to protect against those particularly nasty federal agents who can't seem to read the Constitution (beyond their grade level of comprehension apparently).

When the populace cannot resist tyranny it is guaranteed to arrive.

Dennis May

From: "George H. Smith" <smikro@earthlink.net>

Reply-To: "George H. Smith" <smikro@earthlink.net>

To: "*Atlantis" <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: ATL: Re: from knives to guns to bombs

Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 12:01:45 -0600

Dennis May wrote:

"In a state of freedom I see no problem with the individual ownership of most all common military items. Weapons of mass destruction (as poorly defined as that is) can be easily made by individuals with a little know how. The question becomes who do you trust more, the individual or the state. Collectivist states have killed hundreds of millions of people and crippled the lives of billions. If the next Democratic president

decides to declare martial law who will the lovers of freedom turn to except those "outlaws" who saw the danger and stockpiled forbidden weapons or have the know-how to make them when needed. I can assure you than you will not fight a modern fascist state and win unless you are willing to use weapons of mass destruction, the larger the weapon the better. Anyone who thinks grandpa with his trusty ole shotgun and dad

with his hunting rifle are going to put up a realistic fight against fascists in the street are living about 6-7 wars ago."

I am largely in agreement with Dennis on this, and I applaud his excellent post.

Every government in this history of humankind has engaged in the systematic violation of human rights, whereas in the case of individuals this is true only of a relatively small minority. To therefore assert that we are somehow safer if "weapons of mass destruction" (which, as Peter points out, is an ambiguous label) should be available to governments but not to individuals has everything backwards.

If the prohibition of such weapons to individuals seems plausible, this is largely because they are rarely used by governments against their own peoples. (This is not always true, of course, as we saw in the case of Iraq, but their indiscriminate killing power makes this highly problematic, and it tends to destroy the "legitimacy" which even the most ruthless dictatorships must rely upon to some extent.) Thus, since we assume that the American government would never use such weapons against Americans, we tend to feel safe. But any use of use of these weapons against another country would result in the deaths of untold numbers of innocent people, and I for don't happen to believe I possess any more natural rights than other people just because I happen to live in this country.

There raises some serious ethical problems. For example, to what extent and under what circumstances can we knowingly cause the death of many innocent people in the name of self-defense, such as by using nuclear weapons against an aggressive government which we know will wipe out millions of people who are not responsible for the aggression in question? This is where I might take issue with Dennis's argument -- for

how could an oppressed citizenry use weapons of mass destruction against their native tyrants without also killing many innocents in the process? I don't think we should adopt the methods of tyranny in the name of opposing tyranny. Granted, this moral constraint may put us at a tactical disadvantage, but no one ever said defending freedom would be easy.

The defense of a free society will ultimately succeed or fail in the realm of ideas and values. In any case, it is one thing to defend a right and quite another thing to defend the exercise of that right. It is quite possible for an action to be at once just and immoral.

Ghs

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: Who can be reasoned with? (was guns and knives)

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:54:47 -0600

Dave Thomas wrote:

<I'll explain a bit of my position here: I don't want some crackpot conspiracy theorist who believes that the government is evil to own nuclear weapons because a crackpot like that is just the kind of person who might go ahead and use nuclear weapons even if he/she has to kill millions of people in the process. There are a lot of doomsday people out there right now who would prefer an all-out revolution.... I don't want those people deciding for me.

You don't want people deciding things for you, but your perfectly willing to decide things for other people. You have decided that governments can be trusted to control certain weapons but individuals cannot. You identify a particular type of individual who might misuse weapons if they are allowed to own them. Can we now discuss particular kinds of governments which might misuse weapons if they are allowed to own them?

But of course if the populace is already disarmed the discussion is pointless, the government will continue to control the weapons in any case. What is the average lifetime of governments which support freedom? A difficult question to answer since they are a modern phenomenon with a few lessons from the Greeks as well. In my view after about 3-4 generations free nations begin to sour from a lack of understanding of how they

became free. The less feedback there is maintaining freedom the quicker the slip back to collectivism occurs. I don't trust governments to maintain an acceptable amount of freedom without a populace which is able to reclaim their freedom once threatened. Without an ability to respond in kind simple feedback will always drive governments to collectivist policies. These policies have in fact killed hundreds of millions of people. It is not a hypothetical situation, it is a fact which has repeated itself time and time again. All of these governments had one thing in common: a disarmed population unable to resist the boot of government.

Dave is right some people are irresponsible and bear close watching. I consider it a fact only waiting to happen: if our government disarms the populace tens or hundreds of millions of Americans will die as they always do when collectivists rule without hindrance.

Consider the problem from another angle. Who is allowed to develop the future of energy in this nation? In the case of nuclear energy it is the government alone. Not only the government but a very small portion of the government which does not even allow qualified people from other parts of the government to participate. You're not talking only about weapons staying out of the hands of crackpots, you are talking about stifling every Edison who comes along in this and nearly every area of human endeavor. What government controls, government destroys.

We started out arguing whether or not individuals should be allowed to own 3 pounds of metal in the form of a gun. We use about a quarter million pounds of metal a year where I work and it is a fairly small operation.

In my last post I discussed the specific weapon of mass destruction "nuclear bombs". The problem is you can't discuss the bomb aspect without discussing all aspects of things nuclear. The umbrella of state security encompasses all things nuclear. That is where we threw out the baby with the bath water.

Unless you spent many hours in the physics library in the late 80's and early 90's you probably didn't hear that that the energy "crisis" has already been solved for all times. You likely didn't hear about it because the government interests and individual interests are not one in the same. Edward Teller and company developed the framework for hybrid fission/fusion reactors. Breeder reactors are already capable of providing clean

nuclear energy for the foreseeable future but the fission/fusion hybrid reactor allows for a trillion years worth of electricity using materials common and native to Earth.

Basically you have a fission core, the products coming out are used to generate fusion reactions, which in turn creates products used to generate more fissionable material. You can tune the net reaction to be nearly the same as a pure fusion reactor. The benefits include: tuning the process to produce whatever useful byproducts you want, no unknown or yet to be realized physics is involved, no exotic processes requiring new materials sciences, and the ability to burn up left over’s from previous nuclear power plants.

Lets not forget nuclear rockets as well. Nuclear rockets have been tested and they work. Nixon cancelled all further research and here we are thirty some years later talking about a trip to Mars taking years. It doesn't

take but a month to go to Pluto much less Mars.

The secondary consequences of keeping everyone safe from every imaginable bad outcome has kept us from technology worth more than all the oil in the Middle East and more useful than everything done in the space programs since man walked on the moon.

Governments do not have the brains to accomplish what comes naturally to individuals. Cut the shackles off and the universe is ours. Leave the shackles on and man will die a miserable little death on a planet representing a mere dust speck of what can be accomplished. A natural progression for those wishing to keep that 3 pounds of metal out of individual hands so everyone can feel safe. Ideas have consequences.

Dennis May

From: Victor Levis <viclevis@attcanada.ca>

To: "Mary-Ann A." <mfanet@qwest.net>, atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Getting somewhere: (Emotional truths - can't let stand either)

Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:22:20 -0500

At 07:02 PM 3/16/2001 -0800, Mary-Ann A. wrote:

>[Victor] said: Geez, Mary Ann, how come it is violating your *absolute* right to self-defense if a government agent disarms you, but legitimate self-defense (in some circustances) when you personally disarm somebody else?? How come HIS rights aren't as absolute as yours?>

>

>You are completely dropping the context here. I never alluded that I would use my gun to get someone else to put down theirs as a blanket, contextless proposition. We were discussing the *specific* situation of imminent threat to my person by an individual I could identify by dint of his aggression toward me. The principle here is, ~of course~ -first grade- that: An individual who initiates force *forfeits* his rights, INCLUDING his Right to Life; I am equally constrained from initiating force, but I can respond to it.

Well, then, perhaps your position is not that far from mine, after all. I have NEVER actively advocated gun control; all I was doing was trying to understand what makes the average Joe who is not part of the NWO conspiracy accept it.

I identified the root concern: that innocent people might be badly harmed.

No individual has the right to get totally disarm others in a 'blanket' way as you put it. I agree. In fact, one of the reasons we believe that is that WE fear harm to innocent persons. We have a possible BOND that is shared with some gun control supporters.

Remember, if we look at the types of situations where it IS (or can be) moral for an individual to disarm another, then we have simultaneously identified the types of situations wh ere a GROUP of individuals (i.e. a government) might morally disarm others, or control some aspect(s) of their use of weapons.

This thread started with discussion of grenades and atomic bombs. More than one person here felt that one could NOT claim a blanket right to wield atomic weapons, and that their use should indeed be controlled. Others pointed out that convicted violent felons may be disarmed temporarily or permanently. Others have agreed that an untrained, incompetent person need not be trusted completely in public with a dangerous weapon.

To sum up, I agree with you, Mary Ann, that context is crucial. Looking at context honestly and uncritically may allow for a meaningful dialogue with Joe Q. Public, who is not prepared to respect the rights of anyone and everyone to wield any and every weapon WITHOUT examining the context.

In this light, many of the egregious forms of gun control are revealed as violations of individual rights, and we could get a lot more support for resisting them, or repealing them where they exist. I think we can agree

that if we wish to fight gun control, we need not marry our position completely to one of support for unlimited personal possession of nuclear weapons. I'm just suggesting that we can go a bit further in taking into account the reasoning of our fellow citizens who, just like us, fear farm being done to innocent people.

>You ended your post in a gentlemanly way -- I noticed and appreciated it.

I am pleased to see a mutual improvement in the tone of our discussion.

Victor Levis

From: "J. Gregory Wharton" <ragnar@axiomatic.net>

To: <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: ATL: RE: Additional on Nukes

Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:08:52 -0800

Dennis, another very interesting post.

At the moment, I'm preparing to serve up another volley, this time about retaliatory force vs. defensive force, but I wanted to make a few more comments about some items that Dennis brought up:

Dennis May wrote:

> Unless you spent many hours in the physics library in the late 80's and early 90's you probably didn't

> hear that that the energy "crisis" has already been solved for all times. You likely didn't hear about it because the government interests and individual interests are not one in the same. Edward Teller and company developed the framework for hybrid fission/fusion reactors. Breeder reactors are already capable of providing clean nuclear energy for the foreseeable future but the fission/fusion hybrid reactor allows for a trillion years worth of electricity using materials common and native to Earth.

The Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was being developed as a next-generation breeder reactor when it was shut down as part of the Hanford "clean-up." The only research which now takes place at the Reservation is related to waste disposal. This, in itself, can be very interesting, but it's a shame that the promising power generation projects out there have all been canceled.

Fission-fusion reactors are very, very efficient producers of power, and are much, much cleaner than standard fission reactors. They also happen to be a great deal safer. Also, you may have heard that WA State's governor, Gary Locke ("Mini-Al"), is in the other Washington right now bitching about Californians' taking all of our power to ease their shortage without A) paying for it, and, B) giving any assurances that they will live up to their end of the agreement and provide us with power this summer.

Most (like 85%) power production in WA State is now hydroelectric. When we have droughts (which we are right now) we can expect to have a power shortage when summer comes unless we begin conserving and/or increasing capacity. Of course, the environmentalists are also busy breaching the dams to make way for the salmon, but that's a separate issue... ;-)

Yet, back in the 1980s, an the state of Washington built a huge number nuclear power facilities. These reactors were commissioned and immediately mothballed on the same day. This resulted in a tremendous political boondoggle (called "WPPSS"--as in "whoops!"--to commemorate the quasi-public entity that built the reactors using financing obtained in the bond market. The bond investors were left with nothing except a piece of paper and a bad headache.) To this day, WA State has enough mothballed power production capacity to let every household on the west coast use as much power as they care to. Does Gov. Locke suggest that we recommission the WPPSS plants? No. Instead, he wants a bailout from the Feds. Typical.

> Lets not forget nuclear rockets as well. Nuclear rockets have been tested and they work. Nixon cancelled

> all further research and here we are thirty some years later talking about a trip to Mars taking years. It doesn't take but a month to go to Pluto much less Mars.

Nerva-K (nuclear fission) rockets showed a tremendous amount of promise before the program was scrapped. I've seen the demonstration tapes where a Nerva-K rocket lifted off, and it's an awe-inspiring sight--totally unlike the sight of a chemical rocket in flight.

Of course, there are lots of other spaceflight technologies that were either never fully developed (like Orion--Old Bang Bang--perhaps the simplest alternate propulsion system yet developed) or actively suppressed. Before this gets to sounding too much like an X-files episode, all I mean by "suppressed" is that government control of spaceflight technology (through NASA) has retarded progress in this area dramatically in two ways:

1) Diversion of resources to obsolete technologies

2) Criteria Setting to exclude outsiders (such as the "man-rating" system NASA uses)

As much as I am a Space Nut ™, I loathe NASA and want to see them dissolved and privatized.

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Comfort Level Quiz (was Nukes...)

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 22:53:20 -0600

The socialists among us do not want the youth of this nation to become familiar with guns. Familiarity breeds understanding and they want you to believe what they tell you, not what you have experienced yourself. As every generation becomes more removed from familiarity with firearms the more likely it is that socialists will succeed in disarming America. This same analysis applies to other defensive technology ranging from knowledge of aircraft, to explosives, and more.

I have been exposed to much more than your average member of Atlantis. Lets see how much exposure you have to weapons and the comfort level you have as a result. Remove the mystery by exposure. Without mystery all that remains is a tool. If you score a ten your most likely informed enough to have become comfortable. If you score only a one or two you might be comfortable in theory but I doubt you really know for sure. If you score a zero go get the experience to become a one or two.

I don't expect many people to get a 10 on this scale. I had a 10 by age 23, my father had at least a 9 going. Many of my relatives used dynamite on their farms, and various other explosives in coal mines as a normal part of everyday life. Machine guns were no big deal to them. A stick of dynamite used to be 50 cents and you could purchase them at several places in the local area. Now you need a permit from a sheriff and a law officer to watch if you can demonstrate a need to use one (permits are never in fact issued to anyone but construction companies). 50 cents and five minutes to blow out a stump can now be an all day job.

Score one point for each yes.

1. Have you ever fired a handgun?

2. Do you own a handgun?

3. Do you know the difference between a semi-automatic and fully automatic weapon?

4. Have you ever been around or known people who own machineguns?

5. Have you known people who use high explosives as part of their jobs?

6. Have you seen high explosives used?

7. Have you seen common military weapons of mass destruction tested?

8. Have you yourself designed weapons of mass destruction?

9. Have you known people who design nuclear weapons or have tested them?

10. Do you or did you have relatives who worked on the Manhattan project or know people who dropped

the A-bomb on Japan?

It is almost an alien world to me when I see people cringe at the thought of a handgun. My mother was afraid of guns, I understand those who fear them. I do however take issue with them having anything to say about whether or not I am allowed to own weapons. My mother had no say in the matter and neither should the nanny state.

Dennis May

From: "James Koontz" <koontz_james@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: Galt's Gulch Returns Fire (was Re: ATL: from knives to guns to bombs)

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 21:29:29

Joe Duarte:

>2. In a free society we defer the use of defensive force to the government, placing it under objective control, employing the due process of objective law to mete it.

>

>3. Because emergency situations can arise, wherein our lives or property may be in jeopardy, we retain the right of _immediate_ self-defense....

4. So we have, by default, the right to own any and all arms that can reasonably be used for self-defense in the context of our time. The principle is constant - the technological details may change.

>

>5. Rocket launchers, grenades, nuclear bombs cannot be reasonably used for self-defense in the context of our time.

To play devil's advocate for a moment-Isn't one of the key aspects of the right to bear arms the ability of

American citizens to protect themselves against tyranny from our own government?

If President Bush were to declare martial law in the U.S. [and likely order the immediate extermination of all whim-worshiping volitionists, anyone who has ever uttered the words "Buridan's Ass," anyone who has

ever debated the philosophical implications of "-1," and most importantly, anyone who ever- in any way, shape, or form- improperly used or omitted a smiley face in an e-mail message], would not rocket

launchers, grenades, cruise missiles, and the like, be the only way the American people could fight back effectively?

This admittedly gets into an Objectivist PR problem. Take the example of Galt's Gulch. There were numerous real and potential illegal activities going on there. Their trade and production would have been subject to income taxes on the value of the bartered goods and/or gold exchanged. In today's regulatory environment, there would almost certainly be some zoning regulations and power distribution regulations violated as well.

Would it have been OK to set-up a fortified Galt's Gulch and shoot down the National Guard helicopters sent in to arrest its population for refusing to pay taxes? If full scale war were then waged on this Galt's Gulch by the U.S. government- would it be OK for Ragnar to launch a ballistic missile strike against Washington, D.C.?

That's one of the more unpleasant things we have to be able to answer if we are really consistent in our application of Objectivist principles. The hypothetical Galt's Gulch really occurs on an almost daily basis in places such as crack houses, employers using illegal immigrants, and the like. These places are not doing things Objectivists believe should be illegal (superficially, anyway), so should we say they can morally defend themselves against government tyranny by whatever means necessary?

Not advocating in any way (I'm about the most pacifistic male you'll ever meet), just taking our arguments to their logical, and distinctly uncomfortable, conclusions to spark debate.

James Koontz

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: from knives to guns to bombs to WoMD

Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 04:54:19 -0600

Joe Duarte wrote:

<Me: I haven't been able to figure out how Wharton imagines individuals using nuclear weapons, tanks, fuel-air bombs, etc. in self-defense. ...There is no crime or incident I can imagine in which a tank, nuclear bomb, or surface-to-air missile would save the day - ...No one in their right mind will want such a weapon for <self-defense. Intent in all such cases can be construed as murderous, thus creating a conspiracy to commit murder, which must be met by pre-emptive retaliatory force. Nuclear weapons and the like are legitimate means of self-defense for nations, because of the nature of the threat and combat. Aggregate combat is not the same as individual combat.

The second amendment was not created to keep purse snatchers at bay. It was created to deter foreign aggressors, provide a basis for the populace to resist government coercion, and allow an armed populace to be called up in times of a national or state crisis. Being armed is not simply a mono-e-mono self defense

issue between you and a burglar. It is the fundamental issue separating freedom from tyranny.

Having been raised on the great plains of Nebraska where many people live ten miles or more from their nearest neighbor (who is likely 70-80 years old) I can assure you that having even an automatic rifle is like pissing in the wind when you can see for 40 miles in every direction with no cover of any kind. You are entirely defenseless against any kind of organized aggression by even a handful of would be purse snatchers.

<How do you define a "preliminary act of initiation of force"? Is it the same as conspiracy to commit? Is seems ownership or construction of a bomb is certainly a preliminary act.

Owning a bottle of Everclear is ok unless you have a rag and a lighter nearby?

<Now, keep in mind context again. I am assuming a free society. I am not saying that people have no right to procure heavy-duty firepower and take up arms against an oppressive regime. They do, although war is bad strategy against a democratically-established regime (use the system). In a tyranny, all bets are off.

In the most elementary level of understanding of modern warfare whoever is poorly armed at the beginning of the conflict has already lost. There will be no build up of arms over a period of months or years. WWII has been over for 56 years. The idea that you can wait to arm yourself after tyranny has surfaced was obsolete even before WWII.

Read your Constitution we are NOT a democracy. Democracies always decay into tyrannies of the

majority. The P.C. Police are just the beginning.

<I don't know where the line is drawn exactly. ...I know the line falls somewhere to either side of fully automatic firearms, probably inclusive of them.

The line used to include fully automatic weapons, grenades, cannons, and every other weapon in existence prior to WWI and most of them after WWI. Do you have some insight as to why there was no problem until FDR said there was a problem. Could the tyranny FDR attempted to construct make him nervous that the peasants might rebel? My military instructors at Squadron Officers School made it very clear that FDR was in fact very close to being removed by a military coup prior to the onset of WWII. The highest ranking military

officers of this nation considered him to be a threat to the safety and security of this nation. No wonder he wanted to disarm the populace.

I wrote:

>Lets not forget nuclear rockets as well. Nuclear rockets have been tested and they work. Nixon cancelled

>all further research and here we are thirty some years later talking about a trip to Mars taking years. It doesn't take but a month to go to Pluto much less Mars.

Dave Thomas wrote:

<This is hard to believe. Any suggestions for a way for someone to verify the veracity of this claim? Just curious.

My source was the university course "The Philosophy of Space Exploration" as taught by Dr. John Kasher Professor of Physics University of Nebraska-Omaha. I had the course while a junior majoring in physics (1982 or 1983). We explored the NASA design and used their numbers to show various flight times to various locations using the standard rocket equations. A nuclear rocket starts from low Earth orbit and fires nearly continuously during the flight. Liquid hydrogen is superheated by the fission file and ejected at much higher velocities than chemical rockets are capable of. No big mystery involved. It is a tradeoff between the high thrust/low efficiency of chemical rockets and the low thrust/high efficiency of Ion rockets. The nuclear rocket is the best design yet for exploring the solar system in time spans reasonable for the inclusion of human passengers. Luckily modern astronomical theory suggests the space between stars is littered with various dark stars, ice planets, comet bodies, and other material allowing travel between the stars to occur in stages rather than one sudden leap.

I'm not sure where to look for more information. The issue was cut and dried during the course. The head of the Space Shuttle program at the time Dr. Jesco Von Puttkommer (Spelling?) came and lectured to us a couple times during the course. He was getting close to retirement and was clearly upset that more progress had not been made in single stage to orbit vehicles (Like the just now cancelled X-33) which are the obvious mate to the nuclear rocket program.

Dennis May

P.S. - Set off the largest fuel air explosive ever devised in Cherry County Nebraska. The neighbors will think it was lightning or you just trying to burn off some brush. It would take thousands of them to defend against armored vehicles moving through the area. Guess what the United Stated

doesn't have enough aircraft or bombs to do the job. We have enough aircraft and spares to defend the United States for no more than a week of all out combat. The lead time to procure new aircraft is a couple years after the war is over. Uncle sam has fallen down on the job.

From: Russell Madden <rdmadden@earthlink.net>

Reply-To: rdmadden@earthlink.net

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Needing guns

Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 09:22:08 -0600

To me, the whole discussion of whether any particular person "needs" a gun or not is tangential at best to the whole question. Indeed, many anti-self-defense people harp on that very issue: no one "needs" a 15-shot or 40-shot clip; no one "needs" a so-called "assault rifle" (the weapon they mean is, of course, _not_ an a.r.); no one "needs" X amount of ammo or Y amount of guns; etc. etc.

That is totally irrelevant in any _general_ discussion of the right to self-defense. That's strictly a personal decision that merely muddies the waters if brought into the debate.

Further, having a gun with you is often more an issue analogous to insurance. If one examined the _actual_ risk involved in, say, buying house/fire insurance, one might well say, gee, the risk is so minute that why bother? The risk is higher for car insurance, but many people go their entire lives and never get into an accident.

So, are these folks "wasting" their money on insurance they don't "need"?

Of course not! The potential loss of having even tiny, random (or not so random) odds go against you would be devastating. Having insurance protects against that life-altering or -ending threat and also provides a certain peace of mind even if you never file a claim.

Similarly, one may never actually _need_ a gun in the sense of being actually confronted with a criminal face-to-face. But the potential loss of your life makes it worth the effort for many people. And many other people (such as myself) who don't carry a gun would if it were not illegal or practically so. You just never know when something bad might pop up and bite you on the *ss.

As the old saying goes, far better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Russ Madden

From: "Dennis May" <determinism@hotmail.com>

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Re: McVeigh

Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 18:12:44 -0500

Barbara Branden wrote:

<...it is not the solution to a government run amok, although revolution might one day be the solution...

When will that time be, after the citizens are disarmed and a revolution cannot possibly succeed?

Should the citizens wait until they are so poorly armed that the loss of innocent life becomes astronomical?

A real revolution fought, once poorly armed, will certainly involve tens or hundreds of millions of Americans losing their lives as well as the direct and indirect loss of hundreds of millions or billions of innocent lives in other nations.

The cleanest war ever fought was the Gulf War. It was fought with all the expensive toys brought to bear upon the easiest terrain ever fought from the air. Many tens of thousands of innocent draftee Iraqi's lost their lives, hundreds of civilians were killed, yet the dictator was spared and remains in power to this day. The kind of war Barbara wants has never existed and certainly cannot be fought by those who are disarmed. A citizenry armed to the teeth with the highest tech weapons and plenty of cash might be able to discriminate who they are at war with but such a citizenry would not need to rebel in the first place, they would be free.

Unless Objectivists and Libertarians define how they intend to conduct their revolution if need be, all I hear is pipe dreams of how the innocent should never fall victim in a war. The innocent are always the largest causalities in real wars. The percentage of innocents dying increases as the level of sophistication of weapons declines. The American people are nearly disarmed. When we get to the level of single shot rifles, shotguns, and handguns only, the time of futility is at hand and hundreds of millions will die trying to stop tyranny. Real fighting requires at minimum weapons already banned for new purchases. One more generation and we will be entirely at the mercy of any thug in Washington.

Dennis May

[Chris Grieb]

I am totally confused by these posts. Patrick Stephens has not worked for a long time at the Atlas Society.

[Peter]

Chris Grieb wrote:

I am totally confused by these posts. Patrick Stephens has not worked for a long time at the Atlas Society.

end quote

I think my archives of threads are interesting. Recently someone, not on this list, asked me to find things written about 911 by representatives of TOC and ARI, JUST AFTER 911. I was able to comply. It's a snapshot of what we were thinking at that time.

Another person had written something intended to be an article, forgot about it, could not find their original research, then wondered if they had ever discussed it on OWL as a work in progress, which they frequently did. I used several key words but could not help them.

If I happen to see something a person may have regretted saying I will not republish it (comments about ex spouses are always sensitive after you have reconciled with them 8-)

If you see the word "thread" in my letter, and don't want to see what was said, just stop at that point. I have seen others use the word thread in the same way. I thought that was just my made-up name.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor